Assad must go?
In 2011, when the Syrian disaster was just ramping up, President Obama declared that “Bashar al-Assad must go.” Now, after four years, more than 11 million displaced and 300,000 dead later, it is...
View ArticlePaul Ryan: New Speaker, same House
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was sworn in as the Speaker of the House on October 29 to replace outgoing Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), ending one of the stranger episodes of Washington politics after a drawn-out,...
View ArticleFree speech is only the tip of the iceberg
As the protests rage on at Mizzou, Yale, Ithaca and Claremont McKenna, so many commentators and publications have jumped in, guns blazing, to denounce the protests at the top of their lungs, arguing...
View ArticleThere are good cops – so what?
On October 20, 2014, Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old boy, was shot dead by Chicago police. Police claim that he was approaching them with a knife. On November 26, 2015, more than a year later, the video...
View ArticleWorse than Trump: The Trump supporters
After countless controversial statements composing what seemed like an eternity, most of the country, the media and even the Republican leadership has moved to denounce Donald Trump’s most recent “ban...
View ArticleThe fading appeal of the West
George W. Bush once said that “[the terrorists] hate our way of life,” for which he received a fair amount of criticism — the remarks were seen as exaggerated, oversimplified and so on. Yet, there is...
View ArticleThe peril of fighting for not enough
One of the very contentious issues in the increasingly heated Democratic race for president right now is single-payer healthcare, also known as “Medicare for all” or “what they do in Canada.”...
View ArticleThe risk of underestimating Trump yet again
As soon as Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primaries, the media went into an absolute frenzy of disbelief. The Huffington Post perhaps best embodied the mood, using 80-point font to declare “NH GOES...
View ArticleThe Asian scapegoat
On Feb. 11, a New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn convicted an NYPD officer of manslaughter. While patrolling an apartment building in 2014, the officer accidentally discharged his gun in the...
View ArticleThe conversation: Democratic electability
In the style of the New York Times’ Conversation column, the Stanford Daily’s two political columnists, Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna and Terence Zhao, discuss the question of electability with regards to...
View ArticleTrump is dead, long live Trump!
During the Republican debate on February 25, Marco Rubio finally found his groove. Rather than painfully repeating the same mechanical talking points, he forcefully interrupted and called out Donald...
View ArticleIn defense of Millennials
If you type “Millennials are” into Google, chances are that auto-complete will fill in the word “entitled” at the end of your sentence. The supposed fact that American Millennials, the generation born...
View ArticleA brave new world for politics
In all honesty, I didn’t really know what to write about this week. I normally write about politics, and I certainly could do that – after all, this has been one of the most eventful elections we’ve...
View ArticleThe conversation: voter representation
Once again, political columnists Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna and Terence Zhao have co-written a column as part of their series, The Conversation. This week, they discuss the roles voters and delegates play in...
View Article“Democratic whores” and the privilege of civility
Free speech is not absolute by any stretch of the imagination. We often say in America that people are allowed to say whatever they please. But, much like it doesn’t really count when a tree falls with...
View ArticlePeter Liang is free – what now?
On April 19th, a New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn sentenced former NYPD officer Peter Liang to five years of probation for the shooting of unarmed Black man Akai Gurley. Earlier this year,...
View ArticleDear America: An open letter about Donald Trump
Dear America, It’s time. It’s time for us to turn our glances backwards, and do some soul-searching: Instead of looking into the future, and latching onto the increasingly improbable possibility that...
View ArticleSurprise! The Review is wrong about voting
On May 8, The Stanford Review published an article entitled “Don’t Get Out the Vote.” The title is self-explanatory. When I first saw the article, I drew a heavy sigh, because that’s my standard...
View ArticleJoe Biden: Democratic nominee
Wait, what? You thought it was going to be Hillary, didn’t you? Well, in all likelihood, it probably will be. However, it appears that Hillary Clinton’s seemingly assured nomination is growing somewhat...
View ArticleWhat we’ve already lost
Here we are, a month from the general elections, and to say that the country is in turmoil is by no means an overstatement. And, for the most part, it’s been centered around one thing — can Donald...
View Article